Sunday, 6 July 2014

Monday sees the ninth anniversary of the bombings in London that shook the UK to the core. Known as the 7/7 attacks, they raised for the first time the prospect of home-grown British terrorism. Now, the country is faced with another global jihadi threat. How is the West - and Britain in particular - going to deal with it? VoR’s Brendan Cole hosts a debate.

While western leaders look at how to grapple with the rising threat of the group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant or ISIS, in Britain fears are growing that the terror that ISIS is wreaking across Iraq and Syria could find its way back to these shores.

Added into the mix are the investigations by Ofsted and the Department for Education targeted five schools in the inner city with largely Muslim pupils, placing them in special measures.

Four of the schools are academies and are likely to be handed over to new management by the Department for Education early next month.

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Despite the growing anti-Islam sentiment across the country, British students are coming together to fight Islamophobia

In a move that will be welcomed by many, the
National Union of Students (NUS) yesterday passed a motion condemning
the activities of the increasingly controversial group Student Rights.

The decision comes as a result of resolutions passed at
seven student union branches across Britain calling for a public
condemnation of the group, due to what they see as its gratuitously
hostile targeting of Muslim students.

Student Rights,
which was launched in 2009 to tackle extremism on university campuses,
and has links with the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society, whose
associate director Douglas Murray infamously remarked that “conditions
for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”.

Since
its establishment, its critics say, Student Rights has attempted to
discredit student Islamic societies across the country by publishing
sensationalist and misleading claims about extremism on campus. The union at the London School of Economics, for example,
argues that a 2013 report published by the group on gender segregation
at Muslim student events failed to determine whether segregation was
enforced or voluntary. Instead, they say, the report presented sought to
present segregation as "part of a wider discriminatory trend" on
campuses, resulting in the mainstream media following their lead and
associating gender segregation with extremism.

Yesterday’s
condemnation could be an important step in isolating the group and
delegitimising some of its more aggressive claims. It means that
universities across the country will be cautious before engaging with
the group and offering them a platform – which, ironically, is exactly
what Student Rights was hoping to achieve with Islamic societies.

Hillary
Aked, who has been campaigning for such a move through counter-group
The Real Student Rights, said: “This vote shows that Student Rights -
despite their name - have no right to claim to be defending or
representing students who in fact view them as a damaging force,
marginalising Muslim students on campus and stigmatising them in the
press. It raises big questions about why the Henry Jackson Society wants
to monitor British campuses, and why the media gives them a platform.
It also shows that students are challenging discourses about 'extremism
on campus' with mature intersectional campaigns.”

Aaron Kiely, the NUS Black Students' Officer, also outlined his views on
yesterday’s resolution saying: "Student Rights are not a legitimate
organisation, with a total lack of transparency and have been the source
of many sensationalist stories demonising Muslims. The NUS condemning
them will hopefully put an end to this toxic organisation."

A spokesman for Student Rights said: "This decision by the
NUS is very disappointing for us. I don't think universities will
disengage with us - we are committed to continuing our work on tackling
all forms of extremism on campus, and will continue to do so despite
this latest ruling."

As someone who has been involved
with student Islamic societies over the last few years, I’ve been at the
receiving end of Students Rights’ campaigns and seen first-hand the
fear-mongering, alienation and mistrust it has created around the Muslim
community in Britain.

At a time where almost every
aspect of Muslim life - from the niqab to halal meat – is often treated
in as sensational a manner as possible, this NUS decision will be
welcomed by many well-being British students. It will also happily serve to increase their general trust and
commitment to democracy and union politics - which are both proving to
be potent forces against hate campaigns and Islamophobia on UK campuses.

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Medical workers, most would agree,
have one important job to do: look after the well-being of their
patients. However, in the UK, employees of the National Health Service
are now being assigned another task: identifying potential terrorists.

This new directive comes from the
Prevent programme, part of the UK government's counter-terrorism
strategy created in the wake of the July 2005 London bombings.

As part of this mission, since last
year Prevent has been providing mandatory training to employees of the
National Health Service (NHS) on how to identify potential terrorists
among patients, visitors and other medical staff, and report them to the
authorities.

Documents given by Prevent to medical workers, copies of which were obtained by Al Jazeera, say the following: "The
NHS has been identified as a key player in supporting the Prevent
strategy as healthcare staff are considered to be well placed to help to
identify concerns and protect people from radicalisation."

'Government informants'

Al Jazeera spoke to a nurse working for
the NHS on condition of anonymity because she was not permitted to talk
to the media. (Al Jazeera also learned of similar Prevent training being
offered to educators, firefighters and others in the public sector;
however, none agreed to discuss the training on record.)

"The healthcare worker's job is to
ultimately treat your patient," the nurse said. "It doesn't matter what
they walk in the door with - you, as a healthcare professional within
whatever specialty you work, you've been trained to support them."The nurse was concerned by the vague
characteristics presented as indicators of possible radicalisation. One
of the Prevent documents listed factors such as "identity crisis",
"personal crisis" and "unemployment" that could make someone vulnerable
to radicalisation.

The document also listed political
views that NHS staff should look out for, such as a "rejection of UK
foreign policy", "mistrust of Western media", and "perceptions that UK
government policy is discriminatory [eg counter-terrorist legislation]".

The nurse said trainers were careful
to avoid mentioning Muslims. However, medical staff were told that the
main terrorist threat to the UK comes from Islamist groups, and the
violent acts mentioned were mostly incidents perpetrated by Muslims.

She added that identifying potential terrorists was not part of her job as a health worker. "It's
actually something that the police should be doing," she said.
"Offering this training, it's almost as if we're becoming government
informants."

OutreachSir Peter Fahy, chief constable of
Greater Manchester and national lead for Prevent's police programme,
confirmed to Al Jazeera that medical workers and other civil servants
were being given counter-terrorism training.

"If there are health professionals who
have serious concerns that the person they're dealing with is getting
involved in extremist activity and that is harming their well-being and
harming their community, then yes, absolutely, it's about them being
able to raise those concerns," Sir Fahy said."Clearly,
there is a significant terrorist threat to this country. We can
understand that people can feel very strongly about international issues
and other political issues, and it's trying to identify people who may
be at risk of taking that concern to a level of violence."

On its website, Prevent says it seeks to tackle terrorist threats wherever they occur. However, it also says
that the "most serious is from al-Qaeda, its affiliates and like-minded
organisations". With the overwhelming majority of Prevent's efforts
focused on British Muslims, many in the minority community believe they
are being unfairly targeted.

Sir Fahy acknowledged the grievance,
and said he hopes to address complaints by making Prevent's efforts more
transparent to the public. "It's
really about how we... confront the threat of terrorism, but at the same
time maintaining the confidence of the Muslim community as we go
along."

Lost confidenceBut that confidence may already be lost.Jahan
Mahmood, a historian and former adviser to the government's
counter-terrorism unit, said that while Prevent mentions possible
extremism from a range of groups, "there is a disproportionate focus on
Muslims, there is no doubt about that. And that's also one of the reasons it's failed to gain traction with the Muslim population".

In Birmingham's predominantly Muslim
Sparkbrook neighbourhood, Mahmood pointed above his head to lampposts
where in 2010, the government installed hundreds of surveillance cameras
- ostensibly for monitoring crime in the area.

But it was soon exposed
that the counter-terrorism unit installed the cameras to monitor
residents. After an outcry from the Muslim community, bags were placed
on top of the cameras and they were eventually removed, with authorities
assuring that they had never been turned on.Mahmood said the incident led to a serious breakdown of trust between Muslims and the police. Al
Jazeera spoke to a number of British Muslims in cities like Birmingham
and Manchester, who said they believe Prevent and other
counter-terrorism efforts are less about preventing violence than about monitoring every aspect of Muslim life. This has left many in the community feeling alienated from the rest of British society.

But Mahmood warned that it's not only
British Muslims who should be concerned over the government's
counter-terrorism laws and programmes like Prevent.

In recent years, Mahmood said: "We've
seen draconian legislation introduced - and that means we are
surrendering our civil liberties. Where will this end? The rest of Britain needs to wake up to the fact that we are sleep-walking ourselves into very serious times."

Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in South Africa

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About Me

Journalist, writer and researcher specialising in issues concerning Muslim communities, community cohesion, radicalisation and counter-terrorism policy
Contributes to the Huffington Post UK and the Independent and hosts a blog on combating extremism